


One More Time with Feeling

by electric016



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ben's still dead, Character death that doesn't stick, Gen, Klaus Hargreeves/Dave Katz mentioned, Lila Pitts/Diego Hargreeves mentioned, Post Season 2, Russian Doll AU, hargreeves family - Freeform, no sparrows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28368954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electric016/pseuds/electric016
Summary: Six months after returning from 1963, the Hargreeves are back in their original timeline and getting ready to celebrate their birthday. Unfortunately for Klaus, he can't seem to stop dying.
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves & Lila Pitts
Comments: 119
Kudos: 135
Collections: Hosted by Elliott's House: The Great Year End Fuck 2020 TUA Fandom Bang!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the TUA 2020 Fandom Bang! My prompt words were "Escape" and "Water." It occurred to me that I could have done a beach episode, but I'm afraid you're getting this instead.
> 
> When I say this is a Russian Doll AU, I mean I borrowed their gimmick and a couple of story beats that you'll probably recognize if you've watched the show. However, given their experiences, I feel the Umbrella Academy characters would react very differently to this scenario than the Russian Doll characters. So if you haven't watched it, I think you'll still be able to follow this fic. (But you should definitely go watch it! I'm not nearly as clever as the fabulous ladies who created Russian Doll. It's an incredible multi-layered show and this is just a surface level AU).
> 
> Thank you so much to [Melivian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melivian) and [Nucci](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nucci) for being wonderful beta readers! And thank you also to [epithalamium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/epithalamium) for the moral support and second opinions. <3
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

_The instant his toes hit the water he knew he was going to die. It was a primal, gut feeling. The water was cold, freezing. It forced the air out of his lungs as it swallowed him whole, covering his head, dragging him deeper._

_His body wouldn't move the way he wanted it to—he was thrashing to make his way towards the surface, to push himself forward and up._

_His lungs started to burn and the pressure built as the desperation to draw breath mounted. He wanted to scream._

_He knew it had to end soon, either by rescue or...well._

_In a final involuntary act of desperation, he inhaled, drawing in salty water as it filled his mouth, his throat, his lungs._

_And finally, finally, his vision began to darken, the world around him narrowing down and fading away. The fight left him, and he relaxed. His drive upwards ended and he began to drift—down, down, down._

_And then, he woke up._

\--

There was a loud banging on the door. “Klaus! Come on man you’ve been in there all morning!” 

Klaus’s head broke the surface of the bath, water dripping from his curls as he pulled himself up.

“I told you not to fall asleep in there! I don’t want you drowning yourself!” Diego’s voice called through the door. “Mom's making breakfast, so come on down when you’re ready.” 

Klaus looked around the bathroom of the academy. He didn’t think he’d been in there that long _—_ had he fallen asleep?

“Yeah, yeah, quit your whining, I’ll be out in a minute. Go use one of the other bathrooms!

He thought he heard Diego’s retreating footsteps. Sighing, he pulled the chain on the plug of the bathtub out with his toes and watched the water drain around him.

There were an unusual number of ghosts in the house this morning _—_ restless, gruesome ghosts that cried in his room and woke him up at five in the morning. 

He knew he should get up. Go get dressed. Eat breakfast. Join his siblings. Start getting ready for the birthday dinner they'd planned. But he was having trouble finding the energy, and at least the bathroom was quiet for the time being. _Fuck_. 

He hated being back in the house. Just being there made him want to pop every pill in a 50 mile radius. It made his skin crawl and his mind itch. He could ignore it on a good day, but today was not looking like a good day.

Instead he chewed at the peeling skin around his thumbnail and watched the water swirl down the drain.

“Klaus!” This time it was Allison. “Have you seen my silver cufflinks?”

“Uh, no I haven’t seen them. Maybe Vanya borrowed them?”

“Oh, yeah? Maybe, thanks!”

He heard her heels clicking down the hallway. The truth was he was pretty sure he'd accidentally dropped them down the back of his bedside table, but he didn’t really feel like looking for them. 

He took a deep breath. Well, he may as well face the day.

\--

There was a man standing in the corner of the kitchen wearing a tuxedo and a slit throat. He wasn’t doing anything, other than putting Klaus off his breakfast, but it was hard to focus on the conversation.

“Hey,” Diego said, touching Klaus’s arm and making him jump.

“Sorry, what?” Klaus said, dragging his eyes away to meet Diego’s gaze.

“Is there a ghost here in the room?” Diego dropped his voice to a whisper on the word “ghost” like it was a swear he didn’t want their mother to hear.

“Yeah,” Klaus said, decidedly not looking back at the man in the corner, “Sorry, there’s just been a lot of them around this morning.”

Diego clapped a hand on his shoulder, “Well why don’t you go out and get the cake then? Get away for awhile.”

Klaus considered this for a second. “That bakery’s on the other side of town. I don’t have a car.”

“It’s on the bus route though. I’ve got some bus tokens, and if you need me to come get you at any point, just give me a call, and I’ll come pick you up.”

“You’re going to stay at the house?”

“Yeah, I’m going to help Mom get things set up.”

Klaus considered this. He was pretty sure he still knew people in that area he’d be able to get something from. Plus it was far enough away that no one was likely to notice. 

\--

Klaus pocketed the bills and bus tokens Diego had handed him and walked out the door, trying to look relaxed and normal _—_ which for Klaus was looking a little antsy and a touch weird.

God, he couldn’t wait. Fucking happy birthday to him. No need to let the day continue in this funky haze. He was so over the wailing and the overall creepiness. He was going to treat himself to a totally quiet night. This was what people meant when they said self-care, right?

(It wasn’t what they meant at all, he knew that, but Ben wasn’t here to be the good angel on his shoulder, so frankly he didn’t care).

Thankfully he didn’t have to wait long for the bus to pull up. He clambered on and dropped into one of the seats.

As the bus began to pull away he noticed someone running up to catch the departing bus.

“Hey, isn’t that Diego’s…” he started to say, but Ben wasn’t going to answer him, so he let the words die, too. 

The woman had a monotone color scheme going: black jeans, a black sweater, and was holding a black oversized briefcase that made his stomach flip and his nausea return. Only her bright red boots stood out.

“I wonder what she’s doing here.” He said, clutching the dog tags around his neck. Of course, no one responded. “Maybe it’s Diego, huh?” He continued anyway.

It was odd though, she was coming from the direction of the academy. Seemed weird that she would be trying to catch a bus.

He shifted, throwing his legs across the empty seats beside him. Oh well, it really wasn’t any of his business.

\--

The bus took him to the bakery at an agonizingly slow pace. Did buses always stop at this many traffic lights? Was it really necessary to break for every pedestrian?

He sighed and rested his head against the window. He should have just tried to find a dealer closer to home. He was such a moron. 

When the bus finally came to his stop, he hopped up and exited onto the sidewalk in front of the bakery. 

It stood before him, tall and imposing and obnoxiously cheery. Its neon pink sign proclaiming the name “Cake Walk” for all to see. Klaus sneered at it. Some particularly yuppie nonsense. 

He could do it, though. He could just _do the right thing_ and walk in through the spotless glass door and tell the woman behind the counter that he’s here to pick up a cake _—_ under the name ‘Hargreeves’, yes that’s right half chocolate, half vanilla, no I think we’ve got candles at home, lovely thanks. Hand her the money _—_ and have no money, nothing left to go out and spend on getting high _—_ then come back out to the street and wait for the next bus to drive through. It would be so _easy_ , just one foot in front of the other.

Ugh, but no. He wasn’t doing that. It was his birthday, too, and shit was pretty fucked right now. Ben was gone and there had been no progress on the Dave front. He had a growing suspicion that was because he had meddled. Maybe he’d succeeded. Maybe Dave had gotten to live a lovely long happy life without him, which was good, it was perfect, it was exactly what he wanted. Unfortunately Klaus had a penchant for wanting things that well and truly fucked him up.

Speaking of. He inhaled deeply, coming back to himself, and set off with purpose around the block to where he knew Steven liked to hang out. 

“Oh Steven, thank god, just the man I was looking for.”

“Klaus, haven’t seen you around in a while.”

“Yeeeah,” Klaus drawled, “Can you believe it? Family stuff, you know how it is. First my dad died, and now my siblings have been so” he made a clawed clutching gesture, “clingy, you know?”

“Yeah, that’s rough. So can I hook you up with the usual?”

“Yes, please, you’re a lifesaver. Oh! But you should know! It’s my birthday!”

“I’m not giving you a freebie.”

“What!" Klaus pressed his hand against his chest. "No, I would never suggest...”

“Do you have money or not?”

“Fine, yes, yes, yes.” He slipped Steven the cash Diego had given him for the cake. “Thank you. You are a saint, my friend.”

“Yeah, yeah, get the hell out of here, Klaus.”

A wide grin split across his face, and he turned with a flourish, relishing the feel of the pills between the plastic in his hand. 

Finally, a reprieve from the hell that had been his life for the last 6 months. Any regrets or doubts vanished from his mind. He fumbled with the baggie, stepping out into the street to get back to the bus stop. 

He should have seen it coming, really. Even when he was very focused on the multitask of popping pills and moving to his next destination, he usually wasn't _that_ oblivious, thank you very much. There was no excuse for it. Ben would have been _so_ mad at him.

The bus collided into his side, throwing him down with a shocking amount of force. The good news, however, was that it’s quick. His head slammed into the pavement with what must have been a sickening crack to passersby. 

Instead Klaus suddenly felt himself plunged into icy water.

_From the instant his toes hit the water he knew he was going to die. It was a primal, gut feeling. The water was cold, freezing. It forced the air out of his lungs as it swallowed him whole, covering his head, dragging him deeper._

_His body wouldn't move the way he wanted it to—he was thrashing to make his way towards the surface, to push himself forward and up._

_His lungs started to burn and the pressure built as the desperation to draw breath mounted. He wanted to scream._

_He knew it had to end soon, either by rescue or...well._

_In a final involuntary act of desperation, he inhaled, drawing in salty water as it filled his mouth, his throat, his lungs._

_And finally, finally, his vision began to darken, the world around him narrowing down and fading away. The fight left him, and he relaxed. His drive upwards ended and he began to drift—down, down, down._

_And then, he woke up._

_\--_

There was a loud banging on the door. “Klaus! Come on man you’ve been in there all morning!”

Klaus sat up with a jolt, gasping for breath, sloshing water onto the floor.

“You better not be making a mess in there! Mom's making breakfast, so come on down when you’re ready.” Diego called, but Klaus hardly heard him. He was too busy trying to catch his breath, and patting down his face, making sure it was all still intact.

“What the shit?” He breathed aloud to the empty bathroom.

Last thing he remembered he’d been about to give himself the first high he’d had in months and then...and then he’d been splattered across the pavement by an oncoming bus.

So, maybe he’d died? This wasn’t like the last time he’d died though. No black and white forest, no annoying girl on her bicycle. Just pavement, then bathtub.

There was a second knock at the door. “Klaus!” Allison called, triggering an intense feeling of deja vu from Klaus. “Have you seen my _—_ ”

“Your silver cufflinks?” He ventures, hastily clambering out of the bath and dripping water all over the floor. He grabbed his towel and tied it around his waist.

“Yeah, actually,” replied Allison sounding surprised, “How did you _—_?”

Klaus wrenched the door open coming face-to-face with his sister who was dressed to the nines in a stunning pair of high waisted blue pants and a crisp white button down. “Lucky guess,” answered Klaus, “but actually no, I haven’t seen them. Maybe try asking Vanya?”

“Okay,” Allison said, looking slightly suspicious. She turned to leave but Klaus grabbed her wrist.

“Hey, Allison, stupid question, but, uh, can you tell me what day it is?” 

Allison turned to face him, looking him up and down with concern. “It’s October first. Our birthday? Hey, is everything okay?”

“Ah, yeah, I was just making sure I hadn’t, uh, hadn’t missed it.”

Her brow knitted together, she leaned in and dropped her voice so that no one could overhear, “Did you get high again?”

He shook his head. “No, no nothing like that. I’ve just been having the _weirdest_ deja vu, you know?” He made a vague fluttery gesture with his left hand.

Allison nodded, “Okay. Yeah. Want to go down and get breakfast?”

Klaus smiled, “Yeah, let me go put some clothes on. You know how much Mom hates it when I eat in the nude.”

Okay, so it looked like he _wasn’t_ going to be having a normal birthday this year. Klaus thought as he pulled on a pair of pants. Things had already diverged from how they were going yesterday, but there was no indication that things had changed _per se_ . Maybe that had just been some kind of hallucination _—_ or a dream. 

“Oh my god, will you shut up already!” He shouted to the dead priest in the corner of his room who kept vacillating between muttered prayers and crying.

“Everything okay?” Allison called through the door.

Striding across the room, he pulled his shirt over his head and the door open, “Ugh yeah. For some reason there’s been a lot of ghosts around today. You don’t think Five went on another little murderspree before breakfast?”

“Nah, he usually waits until after his first cup of coffee for that.” She grinned, looping one of her arms around his. 

The ghosts were the same as yesterday, or whenever it was before he’d died. The priest in the bedroom, a young woman standing in the doorway of Allison’s room, a particularly disturbing ghost of a child with only half a face.

He was feeling the itch return. He tried to pay attention to what Allison was saying to him. 

\--

Diego and Five were already at breakfast.

“Klaus, would you be able to get the cake?” Diego asked.

Klaus wrenched his eyes away from the tuxedo ghost to look at Diego. He opened his mouth to say no, but was then struck by a sudden thought. What if this was one of those test-type things from the Universe? Maybe he failed the first time and got sent back to try again. Yes, of course! That had to be it! He just needed to go pick up the cake and then he’d be able to carry on, happy birthday to him...and Diego and Luther and Allison and Five and Vanya. And Ben.

Now that _was_ a thought. Maybe Ben had set this up for him from beyond the veil. It seemed like something Ben would do.

“Yeah! Yeah, I can go get the cake,” he said brightening.

Diego eyed him, suspicious at his sudden eagerness. "Great, that would be a big help. I have some cash you can use.”

“And some bus tokens?”

“What?”

“Last time you offered me bus tokens.”

“Last time?”

“Uh.” Klaus hesitated. Oops, he was going to need to be better about this. “Yeah, last time you asked me to run an errand you said you had bus tokens.” He glanced beyond Diego, but there was no Ben to wink at.

“Yeah, sure you can have some.”

Klaus held out his “Goodbye” hand to take the cash and tokens as Diego fished them out of one of his many pockets.

“Give me a call if you need anything.” Diego said, “I’m going to be around the house helping Mom, but if you need me to come get you if you, y’know, _get into trouble_ , give me a call.”

Klaus nodded smiling, “Don’t you worry, dearest brother mine, I usually don’t make the same mistake twice.” He frowned.

“Yeah yeah, call if you need me.”

“Do you want company?” Allison asked, looking a little worried.

Klaus paused for a second and thought about it. “You know, I think this is something I have to do myself?”

“Oh, okay.” She said looking more confused than disappointed.

So for the second time in what Klaus thought might have been 24 hours, but really, only little girls on bicycles knew, he set out from the Academy towards the bus stop. He had more of a spring in his step. The old itch to quiet the ghosts was still there, but it was somehow easier to ignore with renewed purpose behind his mission.

He was going to get that cake and show Ben who was boss. He didn’t need to be babysat by metaphysical morality metaphors, thank you very much.

As he clambered aboard the bus, he suddenly remembered something. He scrambled to the opposite row of seats and pressed his face up against the window. 

“That’s weird,” he said to no one. “She’s not there this time.” He twisted around, plopping himself back into the chair, propping his face up in his left hand, drumming his fingers against his cheek.

Maybe she was having more luck with Diego this go round. The thought made him grin to himself.

The ride to the bakery was not nearly as agonizing. This time his pent up energy was mostly just nervous anxiety. He was looking forward to getting this over with and proving Ben wrong.

He stumbled off the bus when it pulled up in front of the bakery, turning to watch it drive off. The empty street where he’d been run over not hours ago lay before him _—_ entirely non-threatening. It gave him the willies nonetheless. He sneered at the patch of pavement and turned to face the bakery.

With confident strides he pushed the door open, the bell tingling above him.

“Hello!” greeted the young woman behind the counter. “Can I help you with something?”

“Uh, yes actually,” said Klaus, leaning against the counter. “I’m here to pick up a cake.”

“What’s the name?”

“Hargreeves?”

“Just a second,” she said and walked towards the back.

Klaus turned around, so his back was against the counter and stared through the glass door back out onto the street. 

He was looking forward to being able to put this nonsense behind him and carry on with his day. Of course, his relationship with death had always been non-traditional, but he really, _really_ wasn’t into it disrupting his day quite so personally.

“Here you are, sir.” The woman said, returning with a cake box held open so he could see the finished product. “Half chocolate, half vanilla.” 

“It looks delicious,” he said smiling at her. “Thank you.”

As she rang him up another thought occurred to him. “Do you happen to know when the next westbound bus comes by?” He asked.

She frowned, checking her watch, “Oh not for another twenty minutes, I’d say. You can wait in here if you like.”

“Thanks, but I think I’m going to wait outside. It’s a nice day.”

It was actually a fairly chilly day, but he’d rather wait in the cold on the safe side of the street. 

He carried the cake carefully _—_ well carefully-ish _—_ to the bus stop. Reaching the road, he deliberately looked both ways multiple times before stepping out and hurrying across. Letting out a big sigh as he reached the other side.

There was an unoccupied bench by the bus stop where he was able to sit and people watch while he waited for the bus to arrive.

When it pulled up, he clambered aboard to see it was standing room only. He sighed again, tapping his foot on the ground and clutching the cake box. He was feeling good, he’d averted Ben’s beyond-the-grave wrath and retrieved the cake as requested. Diego would probably let him get away with some shit this afternoon.

Then without warning, his world jolted to the left. The window of the bus smashed open and his world rotated 180 degrees as a second bus careened into his. He thought his head must have collided with the metal pole he was gripping onto, but he wasn’t sure. For some reason the only thought he could muster was, “Diego is going to be so pissed about the cake.” 

_From the instant his toes hit the water he knew he was going to die. It was a primal, gut feeling. The water was cold, freezing. It forced the air out of his lungs as it swallowed him whole, covering his head, dragging him deeper._

_His body wouldn't move the way he wanted it to—he was thrashing to make his way towards the surface, to push himself forward and up._

_His lungs started to burn and the pressure built as the desperation to draw breath mounted. He wanted to scream._

_He knew it had to end soon, either by rescue or...well._

_In a final involuntary act of desperation, he inhaled, drawing in salty water as it filled his mouth, his throat, his lungs._

_And finally, finally, his vision began to darken, the world around him narrowing down and fading away. The fight left him, and he relaxed. His drive upwards ended and he began to drift—down, down, down._

_And then, he woke up._

\--

There was a loud banging on the door. “Klaus! Come on man you’ve been in there all morning!” 

Klaus sat bolt upright. “God dammit!” He yelled pounding his fists childishly against the surface of the water.

“Everything okay in there?” Diego called.

“No! I’m going murder our well-intentioned brother from beyond the grave.” He shouted, yanking the plug from the tub and grabbing his towel.

Wrenching the door open, he came face-to-face with Diego who was waiting outside with a concerned expression on his face.

“Jesus Christ, Diego.” Klaus jumped, bringing his hand up to his chest and feeling his elevated heart rate. 

“Hey, is everything okay?”

“If you must know, no. Everything is absolutely bananas right now! And I’m not really sure what to do about it.”

“Hey guys,” Allison said, approaching them.

“No, I haven’t seen your cufflinks, Allison, why don’t you try asking Vanya!”

Allison looked taken aback at his sudden outburst, “Oookay.” She said making eye contact with Diego who shook his head.

“Hey, come on.” Diego said, pulling Klaus towards his bedroom. “What’s going on with you. What do you mean everything’s bananas? Are you high?” 

Klaus let out a slightly manic giggle. “I wish I were high. Even if it made everything make _less_ sense, I might at least be enjoying this a little more!”

Diego just frowned at him and waited for him to continue.

“Fine, so like, I keep dying, right? The first time I thought it was a fluke! I’ve died before.”—He held up his finger to Diego who’d opened his mouth to interject. _—_ ”No, I’m not getting into that right now. But this wasn’t like the other time. I didn’t just come back, I reset!”

“You what?”

“I reset! I started in the bathtub and you knocked on the door, and I went and got the cake and then I got hit by a bus and then I woke up in the bathtub again!”

“Okay,” Diego said, clearly confused, but making the effort to follow. “And now you’re here talking to me?”

“No! And then I tried to get the cake again _—_ oh right, because the first time I didn’t go get the cake _,_ I was going to get high instead _—_ and I thought it was going to be some kind of punishment, y’know? I thought Ben might be involved? But, after I picked up the cake, the bus I was in got in a wreck, and I died _again,_ and then I woke up in the bathtub again, and _now_ I’m talking to you.”

He fell silent for a beat and Diego continued to stare at him. “Are you sure you’re not high?”

“Oh my God! Yes, Diego, I’m sure! And no I’m _not_ going to go pick up the cake this time. I’m going to stay home.”

“Dude, relax, no one is asking you to go get a cake.”

Klaus ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry, I just don’t really know what’s going on.”

“Well, maybe you should just take it easy today,” Diego said, clearly at a loss for what Klaus was on about or how he should respond. “Stay home and chill out and if you’re feeling up for dinner tonight you can join us, but if not I’m sure everyone will understand.”

Klaus nodded, “Yeah. Yeah.” He sniffed. “Thanks Diego.”

“Sure thing, happy birthday, bro.”

“Yeah, happy birthday.” 

“Want to go downstairs and get breakfast?”

“Yeah, let me just get dressed first. I’ll be down in a bit.”

“Okay, shout if you need anything.”

Klaus nodded. Time to get dressed and face the day.

Except the universe seemed to have other plans. Descending the stairs to the kitchen he tripped on his untied shoelace and fell headlong to the bottom of the stairs. 

Then suddenly there was the sensation of plunging into icy water.

_And then, he woke up._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you're the kind of person who likes to leave comments, I'd be thrilled to hear what you thought! Otherwise, no pressure, and I hope you enjoyed it! :)


	2. Chapter 2

There was a loud banging on the door. “Klaus! Come on, man. You’ve been in there all morning!” 

“Shit!” he shouted, even more furious this time. “Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” He slammed his hands against the bathtub with each curse.

“Klaus, what are you—?”   


“It’s nothing, Diego, I’ll be out in a minute!” he called back. 

Okay, he could fix this. He hopped out of the bath, grabbing his towel.

“Allison,” he called down the hallway as he hurried to his bedroom to get dressed, “Vanya has your cufflinks!”

Klaus grabbed the first pair of pants and T-shirt he could find off the floor, then yanked his Converse on, taking time to make sure his shoes were tied tightly. Even so, he approached the stairs cautiously, taking his time to creep gingerly down them.

“Klaus,” Allison called to him, “what are you—?”

But Allison’s sudden appearance startled him, making him jump and lose his footing. Suddenly he was crashing to the bottom of the stairs again, plunging into the icy depths and then—

He woke up.

\--

There was a loud banging on the door. “Klaus! Come on, man. You’ve been in there all morning!” 

“Fuck off, Diego!”

“Stop hogging the bathroom, then!” Diego yelled back.

But Klaus didn’t have time for that. Okay, if that’s how the universe was going to be. To hell with getting dressed, he was going to eat breakfast in his towel. 

In hindsight, this was perhaps not his brightest idea. He didn’t even make it as far as the staircase and simply slipped on the hallway tiles. The creepy child ghost with the mangled face watched on with pity.

\--

He chose to totally ignore Diego this time. Clearly this was the way things were going for the time being. He just needed to think for a second about what to do next. 

He brought his hand up to clutch the dog tags around his neck while he thought. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to this—maybe it didn’t have anything to do with morality. Maybe Ben wasn’t involved.

“Klaus!” Allison called.

“No, I haven’t seen them! Try asking Vanya,” Klaus shouted back, not taking the time to let her answer.

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask!”

“Ask Vanya!” he emphasized. He heard Allison sigh loudly and then the sound of her heels clicking away down the hall.

Well, if he was going to die anyway, maybe he should just lean into it. Have a little fun. Celebrate his birthday in style for old times’ sake. He just needed to keep himself alive until the clubs opened. 

He climbed out of the bath and wandered back to his bedroom, doing a quick scan for anything that might jump out and kill him.

Seemed safe enough, only the priest was still wailing in the corner, watching him balefully.

“You might want to turn around, Father,” Klaus said to the priest, opening his closet to plan an outfit. “I’m not big on modesty in my own bedroom.”

Operation SAUTO: Stay Alive Until The Clubs Open was in full swing. After getting dressed, he put the stereo on in his room and smoked a cigarette to stave off hunger and his nicotine craving, and flicked through a book he’d been meaning to read when he was sixteen.

When Diego finally came to bug him, he decided it was probably safe enough to creep downstairs with an escort. He clung to Diego’s arm, much to Diego’s annoyance, as they descended the very large number of stairs in the house.

He refused to go get the cake, opting instead to follow Grace around as she cleaned the house, getting ready for their big birthday dinner. 

He considered pre-gaming, but decided he didn’t want to draw attention to his intentions. So after a rousing afternoon of television and solitaire—which he played with tarot cards and rules of his own devising—he decided it was time to retreat to his bedroom.

He crawled up the stairs carefully on his hands and knees.

Perhaps it was time for a nice safe activity like napping. Or ghost conjuring.

He plopped himself down on his bed and made himself comfy, settling into a cross-legged position. He tried to reach out with his powers the way he had for Ben and create an anchor. It was difficult, mentally maneuvering around the priest in the corner of his room, but during his time in the sixties, he’d gotten pretty good at shutting out presences he was trying to avoid.

He reached out into the void, trying to focus on Dave’s aura, what it felt like to be around Dave, trying to pull his presence into the space he’d left in the world of the living.

He signed in frustration, trying not to get discouraged too quickly. Unfortunately, this was going the exact same way it had been for his last several attempts. His last thousand attempts, if he were being honest. 

Well, that did it—he was feeling well and truly drained. Time to sleep this off for a bit.

He woke to a knock on his door. Clearly he’d been out for a while—the sun had gone down. Shit, when was the last time he’d slept? Was it just last night? Or were his recurring days adding to the time in between?

The knock continued, slightly louder this time. 

“Come in!” he called groggily.

The door cracked open, and Vanya crept in timidly. “Hey, did I wake you?”

“Oh, yeah. Took an accidental power nap.” Klaus waved his hand dismissively as he sat up.

Vanya frowned, “Have you been asleep long? The others said they hadn’t seen you all evening.”

“Hmm, dunno. But it was light out when I fell asleep.”

“Are you feeling okay?”   


“Yeah, just haven’t been getting much sleep lately. Ghosts, you know.”

She nodded and smiled at him. “Are you feeling up to going downstairs? Everyone’s getting ready for our birthday dinner.”

“Oh yeah, happy birthday, by the way.”

“Yeah, you too.” 

“But I don’t think I’m going to join you.”

She frowned. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s great. In fact, I was thinking I might want to go out.”   


“Out where? Can it wait until after dinner?”

“Nope, the night is young and so am I—don’t let Diego tell you otherwise! I’m going to go do a little old-fashioned partying.”

“Klaus. I don’t think that sounds like a good idea.”

“No! It’s a great idea! You see, I never got to party like this when Ben was around! It was always nag this, nag that, don’t do drugs, Klaus. He was my personal little Nancy Reagan on my shoulder—the annoying little shit. But guess what! He’s not here anymore and none of this matters!”

“Don’t say that,” she said. “It does matter.”

“No, I mean, yes, of course  _ it _ matters—we matter—everything matters in the grand scheme of things, but for some reason nothing’s sticking,” he explained, gradually getting more agitated. “Whatever I do just doesn’t take! I’ll be able to go out and party and no matter what happens, I’ll just wake up in the bathtub!”

Vanya was beginning to look downright frightened now. “Klaus, you shouldn’t talk like that. Come on, let’s go downstairs.”

“Nope! I’m not going down those stairs again! Too risky! I will not be fooled a fourth time!”

“Are you high?”

He grinned. “Not yet!” 

“Let me call Diego.”

“No, no! No need to get Diego involved. Fine. It’s fine. I’ll come on down to dinner, just give me a second to freshen up and change my clothes, okay?” 

She eyed him warily.

“I promise, Vanya, I’m not going to try anything dangerous. You can even send Diego up to come keep an eye on me! He can walk me down the stairs again!”

“Okay,” she agreed, standing up and moving towards the door, keeping an eye on him. He smiled back at her, and waved as she left.

Poor, sweet, trusting Vanya. 

He crept over to the door and pressed his ear against the wood to make sure she was gone.

Once he was sure she was out of earshot, he pulled the door open and crept down the hall to Five’s room. Thankfully, Five was not there, nor had he booby-trapped the entrance, otherwise Klaus would have wasted a whole day and wound up right back in the bathtub.

Instead, he made his way over to the window, lifting it silently and creeping out onto the fire escape.

It was a surprisingly easy getaway. Especially when he considered how easy it would have been for him to simply fall to his doom from the metal staircase.

Right, party time.

The problem with his escape plan was that the night was still pretty early. No one would be hitting the clubs quite yet, and he wasn’t too keen on lurking around an empty dance floor on his birthday. That would just be sad!

So instead, he turned his direction towards one of his favorite dive bars. It was also likely to still be fairly empty this early in the evening, but at least he could get a good drink and choose how chatty he wanted to be.

He leaned up against the bar. “Leslie! How good to see you!”

“Hi, Klaus,” the bartender greeted him with a smile. “Haven’t seen you around lately. Back in rehab?”

“No, way weirder than that,” Klaus said with a grin. “But no time for that! It’s my birthday today, you know.”

“Happy birthday,” she said. “What can I get for you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Surprise me! Maybe something a lot colorful and a little bit fruity?” Leslie set to work mixing his drink. And Klaus watched her intently, doing his best to ignore the surprising number of ghosts drifting around by the pool tables. 

“You know it’s bad luck to drink alone on your birthday?” Leslie said, passing him his sufficiently colorful drink.

“You’re making that up,” Klaus accused, then looked thoughtful. “Though actually, that might explain a few things.”

“But as luck would have it,” she continued, ignoring him, “It’s that woman’s birthday, too.” She nodded to a woman at the other end of the bar. Klaus hadn’t paid any attention to her, but she seemed to be intently studying the liquor bottles on display behind the bar and decidedly not noticing him. 

“Leslie! Are you trying to set me up?”

Leslie shrugged.

“Well, it would be rude not to wish her a happy one. Thanks, Les.”

Klaus wandered down the end of the bar and sat on a barstool beside the young woman. “Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday, dear Klaus and Diego’s girlfrieeeeeend, happy birthday to us,” he sang in a rush.

The woman looked up at him, doing a good impression of surprise.“You’re—”

“Yes, I’m Diego’s sexiest brother. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.” He grinned, extending his hand for her to shake.

“Lila,” she said, taking his hand after a pause.

“Oh yes, right, I think I did know that at one point. I’m Klaus.”

“The ghost one.”

“The one who  _ speaks _ to ghosts,” Klaus corrected. “It’s an important distinction. There  _ used _ to be a ghost one of us, but...well, never mind, it’s complicated,” he said, waving his hand flippantly. 

“Yeah, Diego mentioned you in group therapy.”

“Did he? I feel so honored. So aside from your truly atrocious taste in men, which I assume is what has you in town, what are you doing here?”

“Why do you assume that I’m here for Diego?” Lila asked, narrowing her eyes as she turned to confront Klaus.

“Are you not?” He met her gaze. 

“No, not really,” she said with a shrug, turning back to her drink.

“Oh. Well, color me surprised,” he said, staring down into his own drink. “So what are you up to?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m here on a Commission job.”

Klaus nodded. “Fair enough, as long as you’re not trying to end the world. I don’t need to add that to my list of problems.”

She snorted. “No. The world definitely isn’t ending. Not today, anyway.” There was a pause while Lila took a gulp of her drink. “So what’s it like for you?” she asked, stirring the plastic straw around the glass. “Talking to the dead?”

“Now who’s being nosy,” Klaus muttered, but he grinned at her and said, “To be honest, it’s the worst.” 

She let out a sharp laugh. “What, really?”

“Yeah, whoever came up with the idea of ‘quiet as the grave’ or whatever, has not spent a minute around the bastards. They absolutely will  _ not _ shut up. They’re always nagging about something. ‘Klaus, can you avenge me?’ ‘Klaus, tell my family the number to my safe.’ ‘Klaus, you need to get sober.’” His face dropped momentarily, before regaining his manic grin. “Do you want to try it?”

“Try speaking to the dead?”

“Yeah, why not? From what I hear, you have quite a unique ability yourself.”

She eyed him warily before dropping her gaze to her glass. “Yeah. Well, maybe one day I’ll take you up on that. Give ghosts a test spin.”

“It’s no bother to me. Besides, it might be fun! A little mirror, mirror. Don’t you want to see who’s standing right over there?” He nodded behind her to a corner of the bar where a young man in a tennis outfit skulked.

She turned to follow his gaze, but to her the room must have appeared empty. She turned back towards him. 

“You’re having me on.”

“I’m not. Why not give it a go? Dabble in a bit of death on your birthday.”

She turned back around with a shudder and took another big swig of her drink. “Yeah, no I think I’ve had quite enough death for one birthday.”

Klaus’s smile faltered. He knew the feeling, but he also had a feeling Lila meant something different. “Oh yeah, racking up a birthday body count. That would explain all of your friends here.” He gestured around the room, then gave a cheeky wave to a man with a slit throat.

“No, nothing like that,” she said. “You’d probably think I’m crazy, but it seems like I can’t stop dying today.”

That got Klaus’s attention. He stared at her in shock. 

“I know, it sounds absolutely mental.”

“What do you mean…”

But just as the words were out of his mouth, the door to the bar banged open, “Everyone! You need to get out! There’s been a gas leak, the fire department’s on its way. 

“Oh shit,” said Klaus resignedly at the same time Lila said, “Well, it’s been fun.”

The next moment, the air around them ignited. and Klaus once again was flung into the sensation of drowning in icy water.

And then he woke up.

\--

There was a loud banging on the door. “Klaus! Come on, man. You’ve been in there all morning!” 

“Shit!” Klaus swore, scrambling out of the bathtub. “Wait! Diego!”

He wrenched the door open. Diego, who was still standing on the other side, scrunched his eyes up and turned away. “Aw, come on, man, can’t you at least get yourself a towel?”

“What?” He glanced down, only now realizing he’d neglected the towel. “I could, but that’s not important right now,” he said breathlessly, “Diego, have you seen your girlfriend? Um, Leila?”

“Lila?”

“Yes! Lila! Have you seen Lila?”

“Not recent—wait, why do you want to know?”

“Because I think she might be able to help me.”

“Help you? Help you with what?” Diego asked, before he caught himself. “Wait, wait a second, I am not having this conversation with you while you’re naked. Go put some pants on and then we can talk.”

Klaus nodded eagerly, retreating back into the bathroom to grab his towel.

Once properly dressed he cautiously—very cautiously—made his way downstairs to where Diego was waiting in the kitchen.

“Alright,” Diego said as Klaus fell into the seat opposite him, “what’s going on, bro?”

“Well, it’s going to sound kind of crazy, and I promise I’m not high.”

“Okay.” Diego’s face said he didn’t quite believe him.

“I’ve been having kind of a weird day.”

“Ghosts?”

“Uh, ghost-adjacent, actually.” Klaus paused, looking around. The man in the tuxedo was pacing up and down the storefront windows at the other end of the kitchen. Klaus recognized the man—he’d been in the bar with Lila yesterday. Or uh, just a moment ago? Before he died. Anyway! He stood up, turning to face the ghost. “Are you sure you haven’t seen Lila around today?”

Diego frowned. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Okay, because it might be her ghosts that have been hanging around this morning. I think she must be close by.”

Diego stood up as well. “Around here?”

“Yeah,” Klaus said, wandering in the direction of the man with the tuxedo. “Ugh, I’m going to regret this. Um, excuse me? Yeah, you in the tails. Hello!”

The tuxedo ghost turned towards Klaus with a baleful look on his face. The blood from the wound on his neck glistened, and Klaus swallowed.

“Yeesh, okay. Uh, I was wondering if you could help me? Have you seen the lady you usually follow around? About yea high, dark eyes, red boots, has a knack for killing people?”

The ghost made a garbled, wet sound.

“Aw, Christ. Look, can you just take me to her?” 

The ghost shrugged his shoulders and started drifting towards the door.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Diego asked, hovering nervously behind him.

“What?” Klaus asked, turning to his brother. “Oh, no. I can go find her. Look, you’ve gotta help Mom get ready for our big birthday dinner, right? And someone’s gotta go pick up the cake!”

“Oh yeah, but…”

“Don’t worry about it! I’ll call you if I need help, and I’ll pass on your love to Lila, no need to get your panties in a twist.”

“Wait! I don’t—” Diego spluttered.

“Yeah, yeah, fine, I’ll let her know you’re down for another lay whenever.” Klaus waved his hand dismissively. “But I’ve got a ghost to follow, so ciao!”

The tuxedo ghost was already drifting towards the entrance hall. Klaus chased after him. “Hey, slow down there, buddy.” He jogged along, out the front doors and onto the street. Now that Klaus had set him on his course, the ghost didn’t seem keen on straying from his mission. 

Klaus had expected them to drift further away from the academy, but instead they rounded the block and came to the alleyway with the fire escape down from Five’s room.

“Oh, thank you so much!” Klaus said to the ghost as he spotted a woman in black with red boots descending the fire escape. “Your afterworldly duties have been completed. Feel free to move along into the the light now.” He made a shooing gesture, but the ghost didn’t move. Instead Klaus rolled his eyes and jogged towards the fire escape.

“Hey!” Klaus called up to her, “Lila, right? You're Diego’s girlfriend.”

“Is that what he told you?” Lila snorted, dropping down to the street.

“Not in so many words. I’m just making my own brotherly assumptions.”

“Klaus, right?” 

“The one and only.”

“Great, well, I’m actually a bit busy here, Klaus, so unless there’s something you need.”

“Oh, as a matter of fact, yes! I think you may be able to help me.” Klaus moved to block Lila’s path as she attempted to stride away. “Well,” Klaus amended, “maybe first I should ask you why you’re leaving my house since you said you’re here on Commission business.”

Lila froze. “I didn’t say that.”

“Well, not this time round, but you did before, didn’t you?”

Lila’s eyes went wide, and she took a step back. “Oh, holy shit. It’s  _ you _ . God, I’m such an idiot. I knew I must have been copying  _ somebody’s _ powers, but it didn’t even occur to me. I really should have known it was ghost boy.” 

“First of all, I told you  _ I’m  _ not a ghost. So it’s talks-to-ghosts boy. And second of all, this isn’t my power.”

Lila frowned at him. “What do you mean, this isn’t your power?”

“You keep dying and resetting, right?”

Lila nodded. “Yeah.”

“And no one else seems to remember?”

“Right.”

“Well, the  _ exact _ same thing is happening to me. But this isn’t part of my powers. This has never happened to me before.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah.”

“So what does this mean?”   


“I have no idea. At first I thought the universe might just be trying to punish me.”

“Well, that’s just silly.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah, of course,” Lila said matter-of-factly. “Of all the people who have ever lived, do you think you deserve to be punished more than the rest of them?”

“Well no, but—”

“And has this ever happened to anyone else?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then how could this possibly be a cosmic punishment?”

“God doesn’t like me very much.”

Lila snorted. “There are lots of people I don’t like, I can’t imagine wasting my time just because I don’t ‘like you very much.’ What makes you think God would?”

Klaus blinked at Lila owlishly. “So what do you think this is?”

Lila signed and dropped back to lean against the brick side of the academy. “Dunno. Could be a weird time fluke. Could be some glitch happening with the Commission, but since it’s happening to both of us I’m starting to doubt it.”

“So, uh. What  _ exactly  _ are you doing here, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I can’t really say.”

Klaus dropped his arms exasperatedly. “Well, that’s not very helpful, but fine. Let’s assume it’s not related to your thing. Maybe we can try talking through what’s been happening? If we have something in common it could explain why this is happening to us. Specifically.”

Lila stared at him for a beat, chewing a piece of gum. “Yeah, alright, but let’s go somewhere else. I don’t want to talk  _ here _ .” She gestured vaguely to the alleyway.

“Yeah, want to come up to my room?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Lila rolled her eyes. “Is Diego likely to be around?”   


‘Oooh, trouble in paradise?” Klaus asked, bringing his hands up to rest under his chin. “Are you two avoiding each other?”

Lila punched his arm lightly, and Klaus grabbed it with an “Owww.” “Diego’s right, you really are his most annoying brother, you know that?”

“Oh, absolutely, I’ve only been working on it my entire life. Can’t have any of my other siblings stealing my title.”

Lila grinned at that. “Well, it’s not so much that I don’t  _ want _ to see Diego. But I’d preferably like this to get sorted with as little drama as possible, and you know how he can be.”

Klaus nodded knowingly. “Ah yes, my poor sensitive brother. No worries. Mum’s the word. Diego’s off on the other side of town picking up a cake. Oh, happy birthday again, by the way!”

“Yeah, same to you. Where are you going?”

Klaus had started to climb the fire escape ladder.

“Back to my room! It’s quicker to go this way. Plus on the off chance that Diego has dawdled on going to get the cake, we won’t run into him.”

“What about Five?”

“I’m assuming since you just came from this direction, he won’t be a problem. But if he is, don’t worry, this won’t be the first time I’ve been caught trying to sneak a girl up to my room.” 

Lila looked uncertain of this, but grabbed one of the iron rungs below him and started following him up. They climbed in silence until Klaus missed a rung as he was about to reach the first platform and slipped. Falling backwards, he caught Lila on his way down, pulling her off the ladder with him. They landed with a sickening crash on the ground. 

And then Klaus woke up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! A bit of a shorter chapter this week. I've been reorganizing some stuff, and unfortunately things just kind of shook out like this. I may also end up reorganizing the chapter count, but I'm undecided right now. Lol. Thank you for your patience, and I hope you enjoy this chapter! :)

There was a loud banging on the door. “Klaus! Come on, man. You’ve been in there all morning!”

Klaus breached the surface of the bath, water dripping from his curls. He took a deep breath and leaned back against the white porcelain. Welp, so much for that. He had half a mind to hop out of the bath and go running off to find Lila again. But thankfully, the logical side of his brain kicked in and reminded him that he didn’t have to go find Lila at all and that chances were she was already in the house.

May as well enjoy his leisurely bath before the universe came for him again.

“Klaus!” Allison called. “Have you seen my silver cufflinks?”

“Hmm, I don’t think so,” he called back. “Maybe you should check and see if Vanya borrowed them?”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks anyway.”

“You bet,” Klaus replied, sinking deeper into the cooling water.

Eventually he pulled the plug out of the bathtub and watched the water swirl down the drain.

He grabbed his towel and wrapped it around his waist before shuffling off down the hall.

He opened the door to his bedroom and jumped about a foot in the air. “Jesus Christ, Lila,” he said, recovering quickly and pulling the door closed behind him.

“What took you so long?” she asked. She was sprawled out on his bed and flicking through an old teen pop magazine she must have stolen from Allison’s room.

“How do you even know where my room is?”  
  
“It was either this one or the one with Allison’s face plastered all over it. I took my chances.”

Klaus let the hand that wasn’t holding up his towel fall to his side. “Fine. But let the record show, you’re a little bit creepy.”

Lila gave a ‘fair enough’ shrug. And buried herself back in the magazine while Klaus found his clothes.

“And did you have to kill the priest?” Klaus asked, pulling on a shirt.

“Priest?” Lila scrunched up her face like she was trying to remember. “Ah, Father Ted. Yeah, he was causing a  _ huge _ divergence in the timeline. Had to go, I'm afraid.”

“Can you leave, sir? We’re trying to have a conversation here!” Klaus yelled at the priest, who continued wailing and didn’t budge at all.

“Oh, ignore him. So how long have you been resetting?”

“Easy for you to say,” Klaus muttered. “Uh, I guess a few times. The first time I was about to break three months of sobriety and go get high off my tits. I figured that was the universe punishing me.”

“Hmm.” Lila chewed thoughtfully on her gum.

“Why? What happened your first go round?”

“I dunno.”

“What?” Klaus asked, crossing his arms. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I can’t remember,” Lila said with a shrug. “I don’t remember what I was doing the first time I died.” 

“You don’t remember? How can you know you don’t remember your first death if you don’t remember it?”

Lila turned back to her magazine and flipped a page lazily. “It’s a mystery.”

Klaus collapsed into the armchair in the corner of his room and rubbed his hands over his face. “And here I was thinking you’d be able to help me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lila asked, sitting up.

“I mean, isn’t time shenanigans like your job?”

“Not my official job title, but sure.”

“Yeah, I was hoping you might have some experience with this.” Klaus rested his chin in his hands, glancing over at Lila.

“Nope. To be honest, I’ve never even heard of someone getting caught in a death loop before.” 

“Ugh, and here I thought the Commission knew what it was doing.” Klaus rubbed his hands over his face.

Lila crossed her arms. “Well, some of them do. I’m mostly a field agent. Just the leg work.”

“Oh yeah, you and me both, I guess,” Klaus said, thinking to himself. “Fine, I guess we’ll have to go ask Five.”

“What?” Lila shook her head. “No. Absolutely not. I’d rather we didn’t get that little shit involved, thanks.”

“Hey, I know my brother can be kind of a huge asshole. But no one knows more about time travel nonsense than Five.”

Lila stared at him, chewing her gum and her thoughts. “Okay. Fine.  _ You  _ can go speak with him. I’m going to go see if I can work something else out.”

“What! Split up?” Klaus whined. “Isn’t that the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do in situations like this?”

“Situations like what? You mean in every other documented instance of a death loop.”

“I mean, not this situation  _ specifically _ . But you know, when people split up that’s usually when they get—” Klaus made a gagging sound, and drew his finger across his throat dramatically.

Lila rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and if that happens, we’ll just regroup back here again.”

Klaus frowned, straightening up. “Hey, didn’t you have, uh, one of those Commission briefcases?”

“Yup,” Lila confirmed.

“Well, where is it?”

“I hid it. I didn’t want to keep carrying it around.”

Klaus’s frown deepened, and he clutched the dog tags around his neck. “You shouldn’t leave that thing lying around. Anyone could find it and open it!”

“Okay, calm down,” Lila said defensively. “I hid it really well. No one’s going to find it.”

Klaus stood up. “You don’t know that,” he said, a slight waver to his voice. “Someone might, and it could take them to God knows where and totally fuck up their life. And then where would  _ you _ be? You wouldn’t have your briefcase anymore, and you’d just have to hope they decide to come back.”

“Okay, okay, keep your knickers on. I’ll go get the briefcase.”

Klaus nodded. “Okay, good.”

“Besides, I don’t even think it’s working right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well I tried to use it, didn’t I? After I realized what was happening. I thought maybe if I tried to get out of this specific moment in time that would break me out of the loop. But when I opened the briefcase, it just brought me right back to where I was.”

“Okay, so we’re stuck in a death loop and your time machine isn’t working.” Klaus brushed his hair behind his ear. “You go get that briefcase, and I’ll go talk to Five. Let’s meet back here in...say an hour?”

“Got it. And if either of us dies, we regroup back here. Sounds good?”

“Yup. Perfect.”

“Try not to die,” Lila said with a smirk.

“Yeah, you too.” Klaus gave her a manic grin in return.

\--   


There were only so many places Five could be hiding, Klaus thought as he wandered down the corridor, trying not to look at the child ghost with the missing face. “Five!” he called. “Fiiiiive!”

He crept down the stairs carefully so as not to fall and break his neck again.

“Hey, Allison?” he called, seeing Allison walk across the hallway at the bottom of the stairs.

“Klaus? What’s up?”

“Hey, have you seen Five?”

“Yeah, he’s having breakfast in the kitchen.”

“Right. We’re still doing breakfast. Okay okay, I’ll be right down.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just want to pick my favorite little big brother’s brain about time travel.”

“Have fun with that,” she responded, continuing on her way.

Diego, Grace and Five were in the kitchen when he arrived, as they had been every time he’d entered the kitchen that never-ending day. 

“Good morning, Mutter!” Klaus greeted Grace cheerfully.

“Good morning, dear!” Grace said, turning to greet him. “Happy birthday! Breakfast will be ready soon, coffee is on the side if you want some.”

“Thanks,” he said, pulling down a coffee mug, and pouring himself a cup. “Five, Diego, good morning! Happy Birthday!” 

There was a halfhearted greeting from his two brothers as he slotted himself into the chair across from Diego and beside Five who was at the head.   


“Five, I’ve got a hypothetical question for you.”

“Oh goodie,” said Five, not looking up from his paper.

“Yeah, it’s just. Is it possible to get stuck in a time loop? Has that ever happened before?”

“What kind of time loop?” Five asked, still unfazed.

“Well, hypothetically, it’s the kind of time loop where someone—or actually maybe two different people—keep going about their day like normal, and then they  _ die _ , and then they wake up at the exact same moment and have to repeat the day again until they die again.”

“Are these two people dying at the exact same time or at different points throughout their day?”

“Oh, you know, I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask her.”

“Hypothetically?” Diego asked, around his mouthful of eggs.

Klaus nodded.

“Well, strictly speaking, this sounds incredibly implausible. An anomaly like that would require a lot of power, and additionally, there would be repercussions manifesting themselves into other elements of life.”

“What, so you’re saying it wouldn’t just affect the two people in the loop?” Diego asked, shoving another spoonful into his mouth.

Five folded his newspaper to look at Diego. “Essentially. Nothing exists in a vacuum, everything affects everything else. Like messing around in timelines you’re not supposed to—” Here he looked pointedly between Diego and Klaus, who in turn frowned and shook their heads at the accusation. “There are consequences for your actions. No matter where or when you are.”

“Yeah, but like, if it were to happen, it wouldn’t just be like messing around with the timeline, right?” Klaus asked. “There’s no future to affect if everything keeps looping.”

Five sat back in his chair, crossing his arms thoughtfully. “No, you’re right. But reality inside the time bubble would be different. Things would be changing.”

“What kind of things?” Diego glanced between Five and Klaus. “Uh, hypothetically.”

Five shrugged. “As you said, it’s hypothetical. Impossible to prove. But I imagine something like that would make reality incredibly unstable.” 

“So like Diego and his girlfriend?” Klaus joked, winking at his brother.

Diego whipped out a knife and flicked it across the table.

A lifetime of growing up with Diego had taught Klaus not to flinch—you were always better off trusting Diego’s aim than trying to move out of the way and getting nicked by the curving trajectory of his knife.

So for the first time in his life, when Klaus felt a sharp pain ripping through the center of his chest, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what had caused it.

Diego and Five both stared at Klaus in shock. Klaus looked down at his chest and saw Diego’s knife protruding from between his ribs.

And then the frozen moment seemed to break. Five and Diego were jumping out of their seats.

“What the hell, Diego?” Five was shouting, rushing over to Klaus’s side.

“I...I’m s-sorry, I d-don’t,” Diego was stuttering.

Klaus tried to take a breath, but his lungs were burning, and something felt very wrong. He tried to open his mouth to tell them, but when he did he choked on something hot, wet and metallic. Was he bleeding?

“Mom!” Five shouted. “Diego, try to stop the bleeding!” Five’s fists were balled up like he was trying to teleport somewhere. 

Where was he trying to go? Klaus wondered absently.

On a normal day, Klaus was pretty sure this scene would have gone differently. On a normal day, his dumb luck and his family’s emergency response training would probably have been enough to stabilize him.

But death seemed to be playing with loaded dice today, because the next thing Klaus knew, he was plunging into icy water.

And then he woke up.


	4. Chapter 4

There was a loud banging on the door. “Klaus! Come on, man. You’ve been in there all morning!” 

Klaus sat up, patting his chest down, feeling under the chain of his dog tags for where the knife had been.

Gone. Nothing. It had never happened. 

He brought his fist up to his forehead, clenching his eyes shut. God, he hoped it had never happened. If there was some timeline that now existed where Diego was going to have to live with the guilt of killing him—

Well, he was pretty sure that wasn’t how time worked. But he was also pretty sure the looping day he was living wasn’t how time worked either. So who the shit knew anymore?

“Klaus,” Allison called through the door, “have you seen my silver cufflinks?”

Klaus inhaled loudly, sitting up. “No!” he called back. “Check with Vanya, maybe? I don’t know.”

He pulled the plug and climbed out of the tub, reaching for the towel to wrap around his waist, before shuffling off down the hallway.

“What the hell was that?” Lila asked the second he opened the door to his bedroom.

“Well, we both clearly died again,” Klaus said, shrugging. “Shut  _ up _ !” he directed the wailing priest.

“Okay, yeah, but how did you die this time?”

“Stabbed,” Klaus muttered, picking up a shirt off the floor and giving it a sniff.

“Stabbed?” 

“Yes, stabbed!” Klaus responded. “Why? What happened to you?”

Lila shrugged. “Dunno, that one was weird, it was like I just had an aneurysm or something. Just up and keeled over. I thought it might have something to do with you.”

“With me?”

“Yeah. I’m starting to think we’re dying at the same time.” 

Klaus pulled a pair of pants up. “Okay...”

“God, do I have to spell everything out for every member of this family? I think because you died when there wasn’t anything convenient around to kill me off at the time, I just dropped dead.”

Klaus scratched his chin. “Yeah, okay. That could be plausible. Or you just died of an aneurysm. Happens to the best of us!”

Lila snorted. “Well, it’s the theory I’m working with right now until we get something better. Did Five have any insights?”

“He said—hypothetically—that our scenario sounds very implausible.” 

“Helpful.”

“But!” Klaus continued. “He also said that if it were happening, it would be making reality unstable, and I think he might be right.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, I didn’t just get stabbed, Lila. Diego threw a knife right into my chest,” he said, bringing his hand to rub the spot where it had happened. “Diego doesn’t miss what he wants to hit and he  _ never _ hits what he wants to miss. It’s his power. And I don’t think his power’s working right now.”

“Oh my God, you’re serious.”

Klaus nodded.

“But you said you were seeing a lot of ghosts around. Your power is working just fine.”

Klaus glanced towards the priest who was now whimpering to himself. “Yeah, unfortunately. Still tuned into the ghost frequency. How about your power?”

Lila rubbed at her arm nervously. “I dunno. I haven’t exactly had a chance to copy anyone’s power today.” 

“You could mirror mine.”

Lila laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“Come on, Lila, it could be important.”

“We don’t even know if your theory is correct. I mean, maybe Diego just messed up.”

“Lila.”

“Look, I’ve got to go track down my briefcase again, remember? You said it was important it doesn’t get left lying around. Plus it might be helpful. Why don’t you go figure out whose powers aren’t working?”

“She’s not here, Lila,” Klaus said gently.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lila said with a grin, and pushed past him out the door.

Klaus sighed. Fine. Might as well go find Diego. 

Back down at breakfast, Diego, Five and Grace were right where he’d left them. 

“Hi, Mom,” he said.

“Good morning, dear!” Grace said again, turning to greet him. “Happy birthday! Breakfast will be ready soon, coffee is on the side if you want some.”

“Thank you.” He sat down at the table with his brothers.

“Soooo,” Klaus started, “I have kind of a weird question.” 

“Stop the presses.” Again Five didn’t look up from his paper.

“Have either of you noticed anything strange about your powers?”

“No,” Diego said, “what do you mean?”

Five didn’t say anything, but Klaus noticed his eyes had stopped tracking across the page.

“I mean. Have you noticed they’re not really working?”

Diego’s frown deepened as he pulled out a knife.

“No, wait!” Klaus said, bringing his hands up in a halting gesture. “Just, uh, try to hit the couch over there, but don’t throw it at anyone. Just throw it in a direction that’s not towards people.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Diego flicked his knife towards the wall opposite from the couch.

Five, Klaus and Diego watched as the knife sailed across the room, before it collided with the brick and clattered to the floor.

“What the hell?” Diego asked. “I curved it! I definitely curved it.” 

Klaus held his arms out to the side and shrugged.

“Five? What about you?” Diego demanded.

“Don’t be ridiculous. My powers are fine.”

“Are they?” Klaus asked.

“Yeah. Definitely.”

“Great, then you’ll be able to zap to the other side of the table.”

“I don’t  _ zap _ , Diego.”

“You can’t do it, can you?” Klaus asked.

“Of course I can.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Diego chimed in. “You know, I don’t think I’ve seen Five teleport all morning.”

“A guy can walk, can’t he?”

“Not if you could help it; not once in your goddamned life,” said Diego. 

Five stared them down, lips pursed and arms crossed. “Okay, fine. I haven’t been able to make a jump all day.”

“Thank you, was that so hard?” asked Diego.

“It’s just the last time my powers didn’t work, I was stuck at the end of the world, so I’m sorry if admitting it makes me feel a bit antsy.”

There was an awkward pause.

“Well, the good news,” Klaus said, “is that it seems to be affecting all of us.”

“I thought you were complaining earlier about the ghosts being especially loud. That’s why you wanted to take a bath,” said Diego. 

“Yes, well, okay maybe _ I _ still seem to have my powers, but I’m having kind of a weird day. Weird in a way I don’t feel like explaining again.” 

Diego and Five exchanged a baffled look.

“So, anyway—” Klaus pressed on.

“Whoa, no, no no,” Diego interrupted, holding out his hand. “Our powers aren’t working and you’re having a weird day? You’ve got to tell us what that means.”

Klaus looked between them, silently begging them to drop it, but when it seemed like they weren’t going to, he let out a big sigh. “Okay, so I’ve kind of been stuck in some sort of time loop.”

“A what?” Diego asked at the same time Five said, “That’s impossible.”

“See, this is why I didn’t want to have to explain it again. I just need you guys to be cool about it and assume I’m not messing around—which, I know, given my track record—”

“Alright, alright,” Five said. “Continue.”

“So, I keep repeating today, but like, not the whole day? It’s different every time, but every time it happens, I die at some point, and then wake up back in the bathtub right where it started.”

“Hmm.” Five mulled it over. “Well, that could have something to do with our powers aren’t working. If you really are stuck in some kind of loop, it would likely create some sort of ripple effect on reality.”

“Yes!” Klaus said, clapping his hands together and then pointing them at Five. “That’s what you said last time!”

“Last time?” Diego frowned.

“Yeah! Last time, I was asking Five about time loops, and he said it would make reality unstable. And then I made a joke about you and Lila, and that’s how I figured out your powers aren’t working.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you, y’know, tried to throw a knife around me, and then everything reset, and now I’m here explaining this all to you again.”

“Oh wait—what, bro? I killed you?”

“I mean, I guess technically? But it was an accident! And look! It didn’t stick! So no harm, no foul.”

“Clearly,” Five said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

At that moment Allison walked into the room.   


“Good morning, dear!” Grace greeted Allison.

“Good morning. Uh, what’s going on here?”   


“Oh, Allison!” Klaus said, running over to her. “Hey, can you do me the biggest favor in the world?”

“What’s up?” she asked, uncertainly.

“I need you to rumor me to do something, anything.”

“What? Klaus, no. You know I don’t do that anymore.”

“I know, and I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.” 

Allison looked between her brothers.

“Klaus, just explain it to her, numbnuts,” Five said. “Allison, it seems our powers aren’t working. At least mine and Diego’s aren’t. We’re trying to work out if it’s affecting everyone.” 

“Oh. Okay,” Allison said, looking back at Klaus. “What should I rumor you to do?”

“Anything. It doesn’t matter, it won’t work! Uh, rumor me to sing the whole of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’”

“I heard a rumor you sang ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’”

They all watched Klaus with bated breath, but for once in his life he didn’t break out into a Queen song when given the opportunity.

“Oh my god,” said Allison.

“Yeah, I know, right?” Diego agreed.

“Okay, so whatever’s going on with Klaus is definitely having an impact on all of us,” Five said. “It seems that our powers can’t exist in his time loop or whatever.”

“His what?” Allison asked. 

“I’m stuck in a time loop.” Klaus waved his hand in an ‘it doesn’t really matter’ gesture.

“Okay, but if our powers aren’t working,” Allison said, “what’s happening to Luther?”

Her brothers froze and looked up at her in unison.

“What do you mean?” Diego asked.

“I mean, his power is physical—it’s his strength. What does it mean if his powers aren’t working?”

They all glanced around at each other.

“Uh,” Five offered slowly, “has anyone seen Luther this morning?” 

Klaus felt a sinking in his stomach and shook his head, as did Diego and Allison.

“Hey, Mom?” Diego asked. “Have you seen Luther this morning?”

Grace turned towards them, a warm smile on her face. “Who, dear?”

“Oh, shit, ” they said collectively. 

“Okay, okay,” Five said. “We need to not panic here. I don’t think this is permanent unless this turns out to be some sort of purgatory, and we’re just figments of Klaus’s dying brain.”

“Charming,” said Allison.

Five shrugged.

“Hey, is that likely?” Klaus asked. “You guys don’t feel like you’re figments of my imagination, do you?”

“I feel pretty real,” Diego said. 

“Same,” agreed Allison.

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s very likely, but I also don’t want to rule anything out.”

“Oh, good. That would make it harder to explain why it’s also happening to Lila.”

“I’m sorry, Lila?” Five asked. “Crazy, Commission, superpowers Lila?”

“Hey, she’s not—” Diego started, but Klaus cut him off.

“Yeah, Diego’s girlfriend, Lila. I’ve run into her a few times now. It seems she’s the only other person who can remember what’s going on  _ and _ the same thing’s been happening to her. She also keeps dying and coming back.”

“That does make things interesting,” said Five, starting to pace again.

“Oh! And she said her briefcase isn’t working.”

“Hmmm. Are her powers working?” he asked, rubbing his chin in thought.

“I don’t know. She won’t test them.”

“Get on that, that’ll be helpful to know,” said Five. 

“She does think we’re dying at the exact same time—which you asked me about last time.”

“Good to know. Thanks,” said Five. “It would also be good for us to figure out how much has changed. Mom doesn’t remember Luther, but we clearly do. And just because we haven’t seen him, doesn’t necessarily mean he’s gone gone. We should check the house, see if there are any photos of him, see if his memorabilia is still here, check on his room.”

“Okay, Five, I need you to tell me as soon as you have any theories or helpful information, because going on past experience, I could literally die at any moment, and then I’ll have to talk you through this all over again.”

“Sure, I don’t have anything concrete yet, but I’ll let you know.”

“Okay, I’m going to go check Luther’s room,” Klaus said. “Lila and I were planning on regrouping upstairs, so I don’t want to miss her if she gets back early.”

“She was here?” Diego asked.

“Yup. But she didn’t tell me what she was up to. And it seems like she was telling the truth about not being here to see you.” Klaus shrugged. 

“Alright, Allison and Diego, go check the living room,” Five instructed. “Klaus and I will go check on Luther’s room and see if we can find Lila.”

They set off in their separate directions.

“So where is Lila anyway?” Five asked as they climbed the stairs.

“She’s gone to get her briefcase.” Klaus said, clutching the railing as he climbed. “It’s not working right now, but I thought maybe you’d be able to tell what’s wrong with it. Plus it’s not really something that should be left alone.”

Five hummed. “Yeah, you’re right about that.”

They approached the end of the hallway. Klaus noted that the child ghost and the man in the tennis outfit were still hanging around.

“Well, it looks like his room and his stuff is still here.”

“Hmm, yeah,” Klaus said, glancing around. “Hey wouldn’t it be funny if Luther’s just like, gone out to get milk or something? Like what if he comes through the door and is all, ‘what are you guys doing in my room.’” Klaus hunched his shoulders to make himself seem bigger in his best Luther impression.

“That would potentially make things easier, but I’ve got a feeling that’s not very likely.”

“Yeah. Probably not,” Klaus agreed, picking up a book that was sitting on Luther’s desk, and flipping through the pages absently. “So, any ideas?”

Five pursed his lips and shook his head. “It’s not often I’m stumped, but to be completely honest with you, Klaus. I haven’t got a clue. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Someone just disappeared from time without a trace?”

Klaus nodded. “And the dying thing’s pretty weird, right?”

“Yeah, I’d say so.” Five’s gaze shifted behind Klaus through the open door. “Lila! Kind of you to join us.”

Klaus turned. Lila was standing in the hallway clutching the briefcase to her chest.

“Five,” she said curtly.

“Klaus was telling me about your predicament.”

Her eyes darted to Klaus before shifting back to Five.

“Unfortunately, Five’s not really sure what’s happening either.” Klaus said.

“He’s right,” Five said, rocking onto his heels. “He also said your briefcase isn’t working.” He extended his hand towards her. “May I?”

Lila looked between Klaus and Five. “Look, I’m not happy about this. But I don’t think you’re going to try anything since your brother is involved.”

“That would be an accurate assessment of the situation,” Five said.

Lila passed the briefcase over to Five, who carried it over to the bed. He propped it up, twisting the dials and flicking the switches.

“You’re right. It’s totally dead.”

“Wait, what?” Lila stepped forward to get a closer look at the briefcase. “It was powering up earlier. I tried it after the first time I died. It just sent me right back to where I was, though.”

“Odd. It’s not even powering up now.”

Klaus bit his fingernail, watching Five fiddle with the dials on the briefcase.

“Let’s see if we can get this open, and have a look inside,” Five said, moving to pry the briefcase apart.

“Is it jammed?” she asked, taking a cautious step back.

“It sure is,” Five said, struggling with the seam. “Klaus, could you give me a hand?”

“Yeah.” Klaus said, stepping forward tentatively.

“I’m going to press the buttons to make it open. Could you try to pry it open while I’m doing that?”   


“Sure.” Klaus said, slipping his fingers between the crease, getting a firm grip.

“Great, okay, on the count of three, then. One. Two. Three!”

Five pulled at the briefcase’s opening mechanism while pressing a combination of buttons on the side. Klaus put all his strength behind prying the briefcase open. 

The briefcase didn't seem to budge. Then all of a sudden it made a high-pitched noise like a television screen coming on.

“What the—?” Five exclaimed, jumping back away from the machine.

But he didn’t get the rest of his sentence out as all of a sudden the briefcase exploded, throwing Klaus back and into icy water. 

And then he woke up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm going to do my best to have the next chapter out next weekend, but I've rewritten it about 4 times now and I'm still not sure about it (and then I still need to send it to my beta). But hopefully I can get it in a place I'm happy with. Apologies in advance if there's a delay!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi chapter 5 is finally up! Just a couple of housekeeping notes:
> 
> 1\. I've updated the chapter count from 6 to ? because I had originally plotted this out as being 6 chapters, but it's turning out longer than I planned. Oops. This is my first multi-chapter fic in over a decade, and sticking to the plan isn't going quite as expected, but hopefully y'all can forgive me.
> 
> 2\. I'm probably not going to post chapter 6 until the week after next. It's mostly written, but I've just realized my EnKlave Fest fic is due on Friday, and I should probably finish that before then. Side note: if you're into Klave, check out EnklaveFest.tumblr.com to join us! There's still time to get your fanwork in before the deadline on the 19th!
> 
> Thank you all for being lovely patient readers, and as always, enjoy!

There was a loud banging on the door. “Klaus! Come on, man! You’ve been in there all morning!” 

Klaus sat up slowly. Letting the water run off his shoulders.

“I don’t want you falling asleep in there!” Diego was calling.

_ Dammit _ , they’d been making good progress. And now they were starting from square one. 

“Uuugh, this is getting really old,” Klaus said aloud, climbing out of the bath and pulling the plug.

Trudging to the end of the hallway, towel wrapped around his waist, he pushed open the door to his bedroom.

Lila wasn’t there yet so he took the opportunity to go ahead and get dressed properly. They were going to have to formulate some kind of game plan. Five was right. Reality did seem to be unstable, and knowing how things liked to blow up in his family’s face, he wasn’t sure how long he wanted to leave things unchecked. 

“So that was a total bust,” Lila said, barging into his room.

“Hey, haven’t you heard of knocking?” Klaus said with no real concern, covering his chest as though he were exposed. “I could have been totally in the buff.”

“I know. I like to live dangerously,” she retorted, raising her eyebrows at him.

“Did you know that thing was going to blow up like that?” Klaus asked, picking at the hem of his shirt. 

“No, it shouldn’t even be possible. I’m starting to think you might be right about the universe having it out for us.”

“I hate to say, ‘I told you so,’” Klaus said, lifting his arms in a wide shrug. 

“So, I’m thinking the briefcase and Five aren’t going to be much help,” Lila said, starting to pace the length of Klaus’s narrow room.  “I think you might be right,” Klaus echoed, crossing his arms and watching her progress. 

“Did Five have anything else helpful to add?”

“Oh, well, my brother’s disappeared, so that’s a fun new development.”

“Which one?”

“Yeah, I guess that doesn’t really narrow things down, does it?” Klaus rubbed the back of his neck and scrunched up his nose. “This time it’s Luther.”

“The big one?”

“Yeah!” Klaus was impressed—there were a lot of them to keep up with, after all. “Very good!”

“Where’s he gone?”

“That does seem to be the million-dollar question. Five’s not sure exactly, but we think it might have something to do with their powers not working.”

“What, so super strength not working just looks like disappearing off the face of the planet?”

“Yeah, crazy, right? Five thinks reality is getting a bit loopy because of the whole time loop thing.”

“So where does that leave us?”

Klaus sighed dramatically. “I don’t know. But I’m beginning to think we have to try something we haven’t done yet.”

“Obviously.” Lila rolled her eyes.

“And I think you’re not going to like it.”

Lila narrowed her eyes at him but didn’t say more. 

“I think either you need to try copying my powers or you need to tell me how you died the first time.”

Lila froze in place and turned on Klaus. “I don’t see how that’s going to help anything.”

“Lila. You and I are the only two people in the world right now who a) are experiencing this hellish timeloop and b) potentially still have our powers. And right now, I think the two most productive things that we could do are one) you tell me what’s happened to you so we can  _ maybe _ , just maybe get a step closer to ending this hellish time loop and two) establish whether both of us still have our powers or if it’s just me.”

Lila frowned at him. “I told you I don’t remember what happened the first time around.”

“Right. Of course you don’t. So I guess it’s time for a seance.” Klaus dropped to one of the pillows on his floor, sitting cross-legged.

“Nuh-uh.”

“Lila, believe me. No one understands more than I do what a truly awful experience talking to the dead can be. So I understand why you’re scared. But I think we have to try this.”

Lila backed up to the wall, holding her hands out in front of her and shaking her head.

“Come on, Lila, it’s just Father Ted here. Nobody—”

“No!” Lila shouted, and Klaus jumped at her outburst. “Please. I don’t—”

“Hey, hey. No, it’s okay,” Klaus said, scrambling to his feet and changing tactics. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed.” He held his hands out in a non-threatening manner. “It’s just—” Klaus dropped his hands and looked out the window. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

Lila glanced out the window. “What?”

“A walk. I don’t know. Clear our heads?”

Lila shrugged. “Sure.”

Klaus nodded.

\--

Klaus donned one of his fluffier coats and liberated a bright red number from Allison’s wardrobe for Lila, and they set off in no particular direction.

“So you grew up at the Commission?” Klaus asked, pointedly not mentioning any relations. “That must have been weird.”

“Can’t imagine it was any weirder than the Umbrella school.”

Klaus shrugged, hands stuffed in his pockets. He turned slightly away from Lila, inspecting his reflection in a storefront window as they passed. Klaus moved with an ungainly stride that seemed to bob and weave around passersby, while Lila’s steps were light and more straightforward. 

“Well, strictly speaking I didn’t grow up at the Commission. I split my time between the Commission and boarding schools in various places.” Then added thoughtfully, “and times.”

“That sounds...kind of awful,” Klaus said, turning back to her. 

Lila shrugged. “It wasn’t too bad. I enjoyed a lot of my lessons, and it always felt like a bit of down time after training with Mum.”

“Oh yeah. I know that kind of parent bonding time. Fun for the whole family.”

“Yeah, well, fun for your  _ whole family _ ,” she said with a snort, giving a leaf on the pavement a bit of a kick. 

“Hmm. Growing up one of seven can be a lot more lonely than you might think.”

“You weren’t close with any of your siblings?”

Klaus thought for a minute. “That’s a surprisingly complicated question. I guess the easy answer is. Yes. I was close with some of them, and then I’ve become closer with others recently. But growing up Dad never set us up to be friends. It was all"—Klaus affected his father's stern manner of speech—"Number Four, why haven’t you finished your sums, your siblings finished an hour ago!’ and ‘Number Two, if Number One can run a mile in 5 minutes, so can you!’ and ‘If you can’t incapacitate your enemy efficiently, you may as well have inflicted your siblings’ injuries yourself.'” Here Klaus gave her a tight smile. “It’s easy to get absorbed in your own shit and forget everyone else is also going through it, you know?”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“But it’s not all bad. It’s nice to have people around who  _ get it _ . I imagine it was hard not knowing other people who had powers.” Klaus stopped and frowned. “Wait a minute. Actually, how did you know about your powers?”

“Oh, that’s a good question. Mum always knew I had powers, so I imagine she figured out with the infinite switchboard—you can use it to look down timelines. But I’m able to test my powers just by being around someone. They never know if I’ve copied them. So if Five was ever on the premises, I could borrow his powers and practice jumping around.” She grinned widely. “His powers are good fun.”

“Yeah, I think we were all a little jealous of Five growing up. He definitely lucked out in the powers department. Well maybe Allison, Luther and Diego didn’t mind so much. But Ben and I would have done anything to trade for a power like that.”

“Yeah, being able to move around in the blink of an eye does make you quite smug.”

“I’ve noticed,” Klaus said with a grin. 

“Okay, yeah, I’m sure growing up with that was annoying.”

“Superpowers bring a whole new level to ways to annoy your siblings. So was it only Five’s powers you were able to copy?”

“No,” Lila said, frowning. “So there must be more of us, I’m not sure how many, but occasionally Mum would bring me somewhere and freeze time and let me play around with whoever’s power was in reach. I never saw them, but I knew they were around.”

Klaus furrowed his brow. “How many do you think there were?”

Lila shrugged. “At least fifteen.”

“Fifteen!” Klaus said, staring at her in shock. “That’s incredible. What were their powers like?”

“Hmm, well, there was a lot of different stuff. One person was able to shapeshift.”

“Wow. And they were able to just grow up like normal kids. No superhero training. No press junkets. No bullshit.”

“Yup,” Lila said.

“Incredible.”

“Totally unimaginable,” Lila agreed.

They fell into silence walking down the street. 

Lila sighed deeply. “I’m coming back round to your God-is-punishing-us theory. So what do you reckon? We need to start righting our wrongs? Atoning in some way?”

“I hope not,” Klaus said, glancing back at the ghost of a woman with a bullet wound in the middle of her forehead. She’d been drifting behind them for the last couple of blocks, staring Lila down intently. “With the number of ghosts following you around, we’re going to be stuck for eternity.”

Lila followed his gaze uncertainly. “Are there a lot of ghosts following me around?”

Klaus shrugged. “Right now? No, just one I can see. But they’re not always around all the time. They tend to sort of always be in a person’s orbit—and you’ve got quite a number that come and go.”

“Hmm.” Lila gave a small shudder, facing forward and decidedly not looking back at the direction of the ghost. “So is that what happens when we die? We all become ghosts?”

“Aw, now you’re asking me big existential questions? What happens when we die?” Klaus groaned.

“I dunno, you’re the ghost expert, seems like it might be in your wheelhouse.”

“Ugh, yes. Everyone expects me to just  _ get _ death,” Klaus whinged.

“But you don’t.” She didn’t phrase it like a question. Just a simple statement of fact.

Klaus shrugged. “It’s  _ complicated _ .” Then he perked up. “But to answer your question—ghosts! Seems like most people only stick around if they have some sort of unresolved business. Otherwise,  _ poof _ , they disappear into the afterlife.” 

“But you don’t know what that is.”

“Well, one time I died—before this whole fiasco, I mean—and ran into a nasty little girl on a bicycle.”

“You are so full of shit, you know that?”

“No, it’s true! I died on the floor of some grimy club, and next thing I know I wake up in a weird forest and this bratty little girl sends me to see my father.” He gave a theatrical shudder. “It was terrible.”

“Okay, so the afterlife is either ghosts, a mysterious white light or a magical forest with daddy issues?” Lila asked, counting them off on her fingers.

“You’re a quick learner.”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that.”

There was another silence as they wandered along, both deep in their own thoughts.

Lila spoke up first. “Okay, so ghosts are only here if they have unfinished business?”

Klaus took a deep breath. “That seems to be the case for the vast majority of them. At least the ones who like to get up in my face.” He leaned into Lila’s personal bubble to emphasize the point.

“So if you see someone, it’s probably not a good thing that they’re around?”

Klaus stopped in his tracks. Lila turned to face him, ignoring the other passersby on the sidewalk. “You okay?” she asked.

That had taken Klaus aback. He’d never really thought about it in those specific terms before. But suddenly he was feeling pretty defensive. “Well, it’s not necessarily a  _ bad _ thing either. Some people just want to hang out. Or check in on their loved ones. Make sure they’re okay.”

Lila perked up a bit. “Is there anyone like that around me?” 

Klaus shook his head. “Not that I’ve seen. But that also doesn’t necessarily mean anything! Like I said, this whole death thing is  _ complicated _ .”

Klaus offered his arm to Lila. She took it and they began walking down the sidewalk again. “So that’s it?” Lila asked. “Your power is that you can only talk to vengeful spirits who are unhappy and ready to make it your problem?”

Klaus laughed. “Yeah, that’s probably not what dear old Dad wrote in his journal, but that sums it up nicely.” 

Lila was quiet again for a minute, thinking. Klaus shifted his gaze back to the storefronts they were passing.

“So, would you be able to summon someone who’s moved on or whatever?”

And that was the problem. “I don’t know,” Klaus said softly. “I’ve never really tried. See, when I was a kid it was always summoning the newly dead and angry—per instructions from my most caring daddy dearest. And that was  _ awful _ . But then I discovered the wonderful power-dulling effects of drugs and alcohol, and that took care of that problem for most of my—” 

“Wait, drugs and alcohol mute your powers?”

“Yeah! Special feature!” 

“That’s...weird. Does it block your siblings' powers as well?”

“Oh, you’re so good at these complicated questions!” Klaus said. “So short answer: No. I don’t think so. Though I’m sure Diego’s aim wouldn’t be so great if he’s had a few. That being said, Dad did manage to drug Vanya for most of her life to keep hers under control, but other influences don’t seem to block her powers.”

“Hmmm. Is there anything else that can block your powers?”

“You mean like a death loop? Do you think my dear brothers and sisters have just been getting shitfaced without me and that’s why their powers aren’t working?”

“I’m just spitballing here.”

“Fair enough.” Klaus said. “Yeah, outside of substance abuse, I’ve never known anything else to dull my—”

And Klaus stopped dead in his tracks. “What is it?” Lila asked, clearly hoping he’d thought of something.

But Klaus wasn’t thinking of anything. His mind had gone utterly and totally blank. Because he’d just seen something impossible.

“Ben,” he breathed.

Lila was looking around beside him, but Klaus took no notice, because his universe had suddenly narrowed down to a single figure standing on the opposite side of the street.

Ben was standing there, hands shoved in his pockets and looking directly at Klaus. His face was totally blank, but Klaus couldn’t help reading disapproval in the set line of his mouth. 

Klaus blinked and shook his head as if he was trying to clear water from his ears, but Ben didn’t vanish. Cars whizzed between them on the street and Ben didn’t move.

“Ben!” Klaus called, but he choked on the word and was overwhelmed by a stabbing headache.

“Klaus?” 

He was suddenly aware of Lila calling his name. She grabbed his arm, trying to prop him up as he collapsed against her. “Klaus, what’s wrong? You’re bleeding.”

He brought his hand up to his face to dab at his nose. When he pulled his hand away he was met with the sight of blood.

His vision began tunneling as he collapsed against the pavement. As he lay on the concrete, Lila shouting his name, he could still see Ben, standing across the road staring at him, until suddenly he felt like he was being plunged into icy water.

And then he woke up.

\--

There was a loud banging on the door. “Klaus! Come on, man. You’ve been in there all morning!”

Klaus sat up with a shuddering gasp, and blinked in confusion as he looked around the bathroom. 

“I told you not to fall asleep in there! I don’t want you drowning yourself,” Diego’s voice called through the door. “Mom's making breakfast, so come on down when you’re ready.”

What the fuck. Klaus felt like he was about to start hyperventilating. It made absolutely no sense. There was no way for Ben to have been there. He scrubbed his hands over his face. Okay, so maybe he’d been right the first time and his dead brother had  _ actually  _ found a way to torture him from beyond the grave.

“Look, Ben, I’m sorry about the time I doodled over all of the characters in your comic books. It was a dick move, but in my defense, we were eight. Will you knock it off now please?”

But there was no response.

Everything was totally quiet. 

That wasn’t right. It  _ shouldn’t _ be this quiet. 

Klaus scrambled out of the bathtub and grabbed his towel. 

"Allison!" he shouted, hurling himself into the hallway. It was true, he hadn’t always been the greatest judge of time, and maybe he was overreacting and just a little early, and Allison would be walking down the hallway now to harass him about her cufflinks. "Allison!" he called again. 

But his sister didn't appear.

"Klaus?" Diego called from the bottom of the stairs. "Everything okay, man?"

"Diego!” Klaus called back, ignoring the question, “Have you seen Allison?"

"Not this morning, but I'll let her know you're looking for her if I see her."

"Shit!" Klaus swore. He rubbed the hand that wasn't holding his towel up over his eyes, trying to regain some kind of grip on reality. 

"Klaus?" Lila approached him down the hallway from the direction of Five's room. "Hey, what happened. What's wrong?"

“What’s wrong?” He snorted and giggled to himself. “What’s wrong? Where would you like me to start, Lila?”

“Okay, well, I admit the time loop situation still isn’t great,” she said, pulling back slightly.

“No, it’s not, you’re right. It’s not great. And things are continuing to get worse! I’m down two brothers, and now it looks like my sister’s disappeared!” His voice was rising in volume as he got more agitated.

“Shhh,” Lila shushed him. “Someone’s going to come up to see what you’re yelling about. What do you mean, your sister’s disappeared?”

“Allison’s gone! Every time loop so far, she’s come and knocked on the door and asked me where her stupid cufflinks are. And every time I tell her that Vanya has them. Which isn’t true, because I stole them last week to wear with a paisley button down I found at the thrift store. But then I knocked them off the table and never bothered to get them. But I couldn’t tell her to ask Vanya where they were this time because she never came. She’s  _ gone _ .”

“Okay,” Lila said, keeping her voice calm, “so do you think the same thing that happened to Luther happened to her?”

“I don’t know! Reality isn’t just unstable! It’s crumbling around us like the last muffin at a strip club continental breakfast! My siblings keep disappearing and I’m starting to worry that this is going to be permanent!”

The confession hung heavy in the air between them.

"Alright,” Lila said after a moment, “well, yelling at me isn't going to solve anything. So come on. Let’s go put some pants on and we can sort this out."

He nodded his head, deflating, and allowed her to lead him by the elbow to his room. 

“Here, put this on and let me know when you’re decent,” Lila said, handing him a shirt that was hanging on the handle of his dresser. She went to stand by the window, looking out onto the street as he dressed.

“So what happened back there?” she asked. “Before you died?”

“I don’t know,” Klaus said. “I saw my brother.”

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that,” Lila said, leaning back away from the window to turn and face Klaus.

“The dead one.” 

“Okaaaay,” Lila said, shaking her head at him in a ‘so what?’ kind of gesture.

“No, he’s not a ghost anymore. He, uh, crossed over or whatever. I don’t know. He’s not here anymore.”

“Oh,” Lila said, crossing her arms. “And ghosts don’t just pop back for a visit?”

“Not like that,” Klaus said, averting his gaze.

“Okay, so your ghost brother has impossibly made a return and—what? You died of fright?”   


Klaus looked back up at her. “I’m—not sure? I didn’t feel frightened. It was more like—I dunno. It just felt like everything was wrong, and then I just...died. Why? What happened to you?”

Lila rolled her eyes, “Ugh, I got hit by a cyclist right after you collapsed.”

Klaus frowned. “What, on the sidewalk?”

“Yes! It was like the fucker had it out for me.”

“Lila,” Klaus said, gently.

“Yeah?” Lila’s tone was uncertain.

“I think we might be in over our heads.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of starting to look that way.”

“I think you need to tell me the truth.”

Lila frowned. “I don’t know—”

“Look, I’m not completely oblivious,” Klaus said, putting his hands on his hips. “Something’s going on, and either you can tell me, or reality is going to entirely implode on itself and then it won’t matter anyway.”

“How do you know it will help?”

Klaus shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’m a nosey Nellie, and I’d rather there weren’t any secrets between us and the end of the world.”

Stepping around Lila, he grabbed two of his floor pillows and dragged them over towards the window. He sat down cross-legged on one and patted the space beside the other. “C’mon. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

Lila sighed deeply, then crossed the room before dropping to the cushion beside Klaus and leaned her head back against the radiator. “Alright. So maybe I do remember what happened to me the first time.”

“Oh, what? No way! I’m so surprised!” Klaus said, covering his mouth in shock.

Lila shoved his arm. “Well, if you’re going to be like that—”

“No! No.” Klaus made a zipping gesture over his lips. “I’ll listen.”

Lila nodded. “Okay then.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you're the kind of person who likes to leave comments, I'd be thrilled to hear what you thought! Otherwise, no pressure, and I hope you enjoyed it!


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